Customer Service Advisor - Taunton, United Kingdom - Somerset County Council

Somerset County Council

Verified Company

Taunton, United Kingdom

3 weeks ago

Posted by:

Tom O´Connor

beBee Recruiter

Description

Some key information

The role is within the customer service team specialising in the Inclusion Advice Line
The Inclusion Advice Line is open 9am5pm Monday to Friday so you will work those hours.
Based at County Hall, Taunton (but currently in Deane House due to the winter mothballing)
Annual leave 25 days or, with more than 5 years continuous service 28 days.
Although we support a hybrid working model where a balance of both home and office working (an average of 2 days a week once trained) are welcomed as long as you have an area at home that you can work in dealing with confidential calls. Equally, if you prefer to be in the office that too is welcomed.
Experience of working with children and young people and an understanding of educational settings and SEND is essential

What will I be doing?

We are looking for Customer Service Advisors to join our award-winning Childrens team in the Customer Contact Centre here at Somerset Council (previously known as Somerset Direct), specialising in the Inclusion Advice Line.

The Children's Contact Centre delivers the Inclusion Advice Line (IAL) function for education setting professionals from school age through to Post 16.

The IAL has been incredibly successful in providing early preventative advice and guidance to queries and concerns around SEND in general, but also around identifying and meeting the needs of children and young people with SEND, children at risk of exclusion or struggling to attend school.

The IAL is relatively small team, but this is an exciting opportunity to develop the service to allow for greater resilience and faster response times.

As well as taking Inclusion Advice Line calls, we are the front door for all Somerset Council services for children such as Childrens Social Care, Statutory SEND and School admissions and transport.

You will be trained to take some of these calls during lower volume times such as school holidays.

We're working to improve the lives of individuals and families here in Somerset and you'll be a key part of that.

The role is incredibly busy and interesting - your day-to-day work will involve:

- providing real-time support and guidance to callers, guiding them towards early help for Children and families and escalating concerns where needed to our specialist teams for call backs
- liaising with other organisations on duty to problem solve queries
- weekly Huddle meetings which offers support opportunities for problem-solving and feedback, as well as CPD opportunities and meeting different professionals across the Local Authority and Council organisations
- advising and supporting parent carers about the Education Health Care Plan (EHCP) process
- taking calls in relation to safeguarding for children

What kind of experience or qualifications do I need?
We offer ongoing support, training and guidance to help you be the best you can be.

But it will really help if you:
- experience of working with children and young people and an understanding of educational settings and SEND
- knowledge and understanding of the SEND Code of Practice 0-25 and statutory requirements and process
- knowledge of the Somerset Graduated Response Tool and early intervention
- strong communication skills, demonstrating empathy, curiosity, and solution-focussed practice
- a good level of IT competence and confidence

Previous telephone experience is not essential but you must be able to demonstrate good customer service, enthusiasm to learn about our services, empathy and understand the confidential and sometimes difficult nature of the calls we take.

Following your comprehensive training programme, you will be well supported by your manager and team with regular one to ones and coaching.

We're proud to be here for the people of Somerset. And that means everyone in Somerset.

An important part of this is ensuring that we are as diverse and inclusive as the people and communities we serve.

What's in it for me?

We are proud to offer an environment that is supportive and rewarding, working as part of a team who are passionate about the work they do to improve the lives of people in Somerset.

We offer great training and development opportunities, with supportive management.

As well as this, we have some fantastic employee benefits available:

We promote a healthy worklife balance and offer flexible working arrangements wherever possible, including working from home.
Generous annual leave allowance, with the opportunity to purchase additional leave
Staff discounts in gyms.
Employee Assistance for the times you may need some support and a variety of employee wellbeing services.
Auto enrolment onto our generous Pension Scheme and optional pension enhancement through our Additional Voluntary Contribution scheme.
A Flexible Benefits Scheme via salary sacrifice to obtain a cycle for work and health screenings.
My Staff Shop offering discounts in shops, online shopping, restaurants, cinema tickets,